Almost six months after signing off ABC’s
Good Morning America to fight a life-threatening illness, Robin Roberts made her return
yesterday to the most-watched morning show, describing herself as thankful and a bit relieved to be
back.

“I keep pinching myself, and I realize that this is real. This is really happening,” she said on
the broadcast. “Faith, family and friends have brought me to this moment, and I am so full of
gratitude.”

The moment, promoted two weeks ahead by ABC, was celebrated by fans of the show — thousands of
whom sent good wishes on social-networking sites. Many of them watch the show specifically for
Roberts, who is, according to industry research, the most-liked host on any American morning news
show.

“After 173 very long days, it’s beautiful to get back to business as usual with our full team
and two more wonderful regulars,” Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News, said in an interview before
the broadcast.The two regulars he mentioned are Amy Robach and Elizabeth Vargas, who took turns
filling in while Roberts was away.“They will continue to show up regularly on
GMA,” he said.

But the co-host chair next to George Stephanopoulos is Roberts’ chair again, as Sherwood pledged
that it would be when she signed off.

Her return defied the expectations of some industry observers who predicted she would be
unwilling or unable to anchor again. It also gave ABC fresh optimism that
GMA, with Roberts back in her chair, can continue to beat NBC’s
Today, which last year was dislodged from the top spot in the morning ratings after 16
straight years.

Most of all, her return closed a chapter in a story that started almost exactly one year ago,
when Roberts felt exhausted while covering the 2012 Academy Awards in Los Angeles for
ABC.Subsequent tests by her doctors found that she had myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare and
debilitating blood disorder, probably resulting from her treatment for breast cancer five years
earlier.

Roberts found out about her illness during the same week in April that
GMA beat
Today for the first time. She told viewers about the diagnosis two months later, in
mid-June, and took a medical leave of absence at the end of August so she could undergo a
bone-marrow transplant.

ABC decided to make Roberts a part of the show even while she was in the hospital recuperating
from the transplant. Stephanopoulos and the other co-hosts mentioned her by name at least once
every half-hour, and they shared her Twitter messages and photos on television regularly.

ABC executives and producers emphasized that they were taking their cues from Roberts every step
of the way, and she has said the same thing in interviews. She is returning now, they said, only
because her doctors say she is ready.

She came closer to death last year than ABC readily acknowledged at the time. For three months
after the transplant, because her newly booted immune system was like a newborn’s, she stayed in
isolation, first in a New York hospital and then in her home.

Her return was even cause for a temporary cessation of hostilities between
Today and
GMA.
Today sent a gift basket to the ABC studio and welcomed Roberts back to the morning beat
during the show’s 8 a.m. hour.